SBA Communications Stock: 5-Year Buy-and-Hold Return Analysis for SBAC

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— Warren Buffett

SBA Communications stock delivered a sharply negative 5-year buy-and-hold outcome over the period reviewed here. For investors who purchased SBA Communications Corp (NASD: SBAC) in late July 2021 and held through late July 2026 with dividends reinvested, the result was a substantial capital loss that dividend income only partially offset.

The exercise is straightforward: start with a $10,000 investment, assume a full five-year holding period, and include dividend reinvestment to measure total return rather than price return alone. That approach is especially relevant for evaluating long-duration equity performance, because it captures both changes in the share price and cash distributions received along the way.

SBAC 5-Year Return Details

SBAC 5-Year Return Details
Start date:	07/27/2021	$10,000 07/27/2021   $5,512 07/24/2026
End date:	07/24/2026
Start price/share:	$340.79
End price/share:	$173.57
Starting shares:	29.34
Ending shares:	31.75
Dividends reinvested/share:	$18.26
Total return:	-44.89%
Average annual return:	-11.24%
Starting investment:	$10,000.00
Ending investment:	$5,512.77

What a $10,000 Investment in SBAC Became

The result was unfavorable. A $10,000 investment in SBAC on 07/27/2021 would have declined to $5,512.77 by 07/24/2026, assuming dividends were reinvested. That equates to a total return of -44.89% and an average annual return of -11.24%.

In practical terms, the decline in SBA Communications’ share price was the dominant driver of the outcome. The stock fell from $340.79 to $173.57 over the period, a drop that the company’s dividend stream was not large enough to counterbalance. This is an important distinction in total-return analysis: reinvested dividends can soften the impact of weak share-price performance, but they cannot fully offset a deep contraction in valuation on their own.

[These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

How Dividend Reinvestment Affected the Outcome

SBA Communications paid a cumulative $18.26 per share in dividends over the five-year holding period used in this calculation. Reinvesting those distributions increased the share count from 29.34 shares at the outset to 31.75 shares at the end.

That illustrates the mechanics of a dividend reinvestment plan, or DRIP:

• Cash dividends are used to purchase additional shares.
• The investor ends the holding period with a larger share count.
• Total return includes both price movement and the value created by reinvested distributions.

Even so, the additional 2.41 shares accumulated through reinvestment were not enough to overcome the roughly 49% decline in the stock price over the period. For lower-yielding equities, this is often the key constraint: dividend compounding helps, but it usually works gradually and is most powerful when paired with stable or rising underlying share prices.

Current Yield and Yield on Cost

Using the most recent annualized dividend rate of $5 per share, SBAC shows a current yield of approximately 2.88% based on the ending share price of $173.57.

Another useful measure is yield on cost, which compares the current annualized dividend to the original purchase price. On that basis, a $5 annual dividend against the initial $340.79 purchase price produces a yield on cost of about 0.85%.

These two figures answer different questions:

• Current yield shows what a new buyer would earn at today’s price, before any change in the dividend.
• Yield on cost shows how the present dividend stream compares with the original entry price.

In this case, the gap between the two metrics is a direct consequence of the stock’s decline. When the share price falls while the dividend rate remains in place, current yield tends to rise, even if the holding-period return for existing investors remains poor.

Key Takeaways From This 5-Year SBAC Holding Period

• SBAC produced a negative 5-year total return of -44.89% with dividends reinvested.
• A $10,000 starting investment fell to $5,512.77.
• Dividend reinvestment increased share count, but not enough to offset the stock’s price decline.
• The period highlights why total return matters more than dividend income alone when evaluating long-term equity performance.